Jackets!

I moved on from the first jacket to start pattern making my second jacket which was a little more complex as it had a collar and a lapel. From what i remember in second year tailoring, these were hard! Yipee (sarcasm)

I wasn't really sure where to begin so i called over my lecturer for some guidance. It was similar to the first jacket but i had to add a collar. I also had to split the dart in the back pattern into two which involved measuring the dart and dividing it in half and there was the value of each dart. I made one dart longer than the other as it appeared on my fitted jacket that i had imitated for the lapel on my first jacket.

With everything traced off i began to cut our my patterns reading to toile up my second jacket. I sewed the body of the jacket together with one sleeve attached then fit it to a mannequin. I noticed the shoulder points were pulling back and the collar was up too far so i decided to trim it about 3cm which made it a little bit better. I didn't like the shape of the lapel either and when it came to pinning the collar into place i realised i didn't like how small the collar was when it was rolled over. I talked with my lecturers about this problem that i had come across and the only option was to redraw and toile up the jacket for the second time. I went back to my front master and redrew the lapel and made the collar bigger. After making the adjustments i retraced and cut out my toile again. I found the second toile to be a much better look and fit around neck.

I then started to play around with the frills on the shoulders. Although the detachable sleeve was a brilliant idea it would be a very difficult thing to fiddle with when making and it would create a bulkier look in the armhole seams. I decided to ditch that idea and just insert frills but i wasn't sure what fabric to use to get the fullness of the frill. I made one frill consisting of tulle and attached it to one shoulder and the other frill out of netting and attached it to the other shoulder. I then talked with my friends about which one they preferred and my wonderful friends Petricia suggested that i use both tulle, netting and bits of organza together for each frill! It was a fabulous idea which i tried out and it turned out so well! Now i just have to play around with the fullness and the length of the frills.